


i dreamt we spoke again

by brodmann



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Delirium, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Titans Tomorrow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 03:33:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20614274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brodmann/pseuds/brodmann
Summary: I spent a year searching for Jason Todd, tracing every rumour of the Red Hood in criminal underworlds on the other side of the planet.The search ended in the Himalayas, with a story of a hundred mystic assassins.He did better than you might expect. But not well enough.- Detective Comics #966





	i dreamt we spoke again

**Author's Note:**

> This fic uses [that one page](https://i.imgur.com/PdwdHd7.jpg) from Detective Comics #966 as a launching pad.
> 
> Many thanks to [ictus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ictus) for the beta!
> 
> Fic title from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_OgE1vsM20).

Tim finds Jason slumped in a collection of urban debris on a street corner in Saigon, pale and cachexic, a dense scar over his right eye and a stump where his left leg used to be.

It’s unclear whether or not he’s alive at a glance. Tim leans down to checks for a pulse at Jason’s wrist. It rises up to meet his fingers, fast and irregular and weak, like it’ll fade out at any moment.

He picks Jason up from the ground and hails a cab. Jason weighs barely anything at all. 

An upscale hotel in District 1 agrees to take them in as guests when Tim slaps three sweaty Benjamins into the hands of the receptionist. For privacy, he rents a penthouse on the second-to-highest floor.

In the lift, Tim watches the floor dial tick up to the sound of muzak. Once they’re there, he carries Jason inside, past the living area and the attached kitchenette, into the bedroom, laying Jason down on the pristine white sheets.

The first few days are the hardest.

Jason is hot to the touch. He sweats through his clothes and his breathing vacillates between too fast and too slow. He seizes and moans, clutching his abdomen like there’s something inside him with teeth trying to tear its way out. He cries. He can’t make it to the bathroom by himself; Tim has to carry him him, position him, clean him and bring him back to bed. Sometimes, in dreams, he calls out for Bruce like a child.

In Jason’s more lucid moments, he tries every trick in the book to cut Tim with his words. It isn’t easy to stomach but it’s preferable to the alternative. The less lucid moments, when all Jason can say is _I can’t do this anymore _over and over in a voice that sounds nothing like him. He begs Tim to leave him alone while clutching to Tim’s shirt. Through the worst of it, he begs Tim to kill him.

Tim reminds himself that this won’t last forever, and waits.

He’s in the middle of wiping sweat away from Jason’s brow with a hand towel when Jason mutters, “I’m hungry.”

It feels like the first time Tim has been able to breathe freely in an eternity.

“What do you want to eat?” Tim asks. His cheeks pinch with the effort not to grin.

Jason good eye opens to look up at him. “A burger,” he says, with straight-laced seriousness. “With pickles, bacon and a double helping of cheese.”

In the first few days, Tim had to get an intravenous line into Jason’s arm because he had been dehydrated but he hadn’t been able to keep down any fluids.

“You can have soup,” Tim says.

Jason huffs a breath that might have been laughter in better circumstances, his good eye falling closed once again. His eyelashes are as long and as thick as Tim remembers. “That’s a fair compromise.”

Tim reaches over Jason’s body to grab the phone and call for room service.

While they wait, he watches Jason’s chest slowly rise and fall with his breathing. The warm towel he’d been using is still sitting in his hands, cooling slowly to room temperature.

He doesn’t know whether or not to continue now that Jason is more like himself. What he learned from dealing with Jason in the past is that it’s easier to help Jason when he’s unconscious or delirious; in those times, Tim only has to think about what Jason needs, not about whether or not Jason wants him there.

The doorbell rings to announce the arrival of the soup. Tim steps away to retrieve it, and when he comes back, it’s to the sight of Jason trying to push himself upright on the bed. Tim places the tray down on the nightstand closest to him.

Jason manages a half-dozen spoonfuls before he’s retching. Tim is quick to grab the bin from the corner of the room and bring it to Jason’s lap just before Jason spews up the little in his stomach.

Tim hesitates for a moment before reaching out to rub circles into Jason’s back. “You tried,” he offers.

“Sure did. Good call on not ordering that burger.” Another wet retch.

For dinner, Tim calls for room service again and requests a lighter meal. Jason doesn’t finish it but he holds it down.

Day by day, Jason begins retaining more colour.

Tim has been receiving ad hoc reports from his contacts on the ground in Gotham ever since he set out to find Jason. The reports contain information about what’s happened most recently in which district, who is in power and who isn’t, crime statistics, death tolls.

(From Kon, he receives carefully worded queries about how he’s doing and when he’s coming back.)

Today, a bomb has taken out half of Gotham General District Hospital. There are at least a hundred confirmed dead and many more wounded.

When Tim looks up from his laptop, Jason is reclined in bed, laughing at a poorly dubbed soap opera. Tim closes his laptop and joins him.

“I want to take a bath,” Jason announces, almost petulantly, when Tim comes back from grocery shopping.

He isn’t sure what to do with the information Jason has given him. But Jason is looking at him expectantly, so he forces himself to think.

“Do you need help?” he tries.

“Obviously.” Jason says this with almost theatrical exasperation. “I’m going to slip on a bathroom tile and crack my head open if I try it on my own. Come here and help me.”

And there’s no arguing with that, so Tim does what he’s told.

When was the last time Jason had asked him for help? There was one time, when Jason got himself stuck in an extended altercation with a group of Two-Face’s men and needed someone to cover his stakeout shift. Another time, when Jason asked him for a painkiller while they were on patrol. Another handful of times when Jason approached him for intel, never without having intel himself to exchange. Tim suspected that the thought of Tim doing him a favour disgusted him.

In the bathroom, Tim sits Jason down on the toilet seat so that he can fill up the tub. The heat from the water fogs up the mirror. While the tap is running, Tim undresses him— Jason is passive, moving only to assist him— and lifts him up to lower him into the bathtub. Jason sighs in satisfaction. Before Tim’s hands have left Jason’s body, Jason is wagging the hotel’s complimentary shampoo and body wash in his direction.

And there’s no arguing with that either, so Tim takes it.

The shampoo smells like frangipani. He kneels down at the head of the bathtub and begins kneading soap suds into Jason’s scalp. Jason leans into his touch like a cat.

Tim buys Jason a pair of crutches. Over the next week, Jason begins shedding his fatigue and begins mobilising more independently. It puts Jason in good spirits and predisposes him to chattiness.

It’s the sort of atmosphere that lulls Tim into a false sense of security. His guard isn’t up when Jason finally asks him what he’s doing in Vietnam.

“You didn’t come all the way here just because you missed me,” Jason explains over breakfast, and Tim knew that they were going to talk about this, but he’d hoped that it wouldn’t be so soon.

“I mean, I know you used to be madly in love with me,” he adds, like it’s supposed to be funny. “But I’m sure we’re past that now.”

It’s the first time that Jason has ever let on that he knew. When Tim was sixteen, he had decided that it would be unforgivable for Jason to find out how much he meant to him. Maybe it is funny, because he clearly hadn’t done a good job.

Tim stirs his spoon through his bowl of cereal.

“Dick has stepped down.”

He counts the seconds that pass by in silence. One, two, three, four.

“And you were looking for someone who could take up the mantle in his place,” Jason says.

“Yes. I was.”

Jason’s laughter bubbles up slowly, cruel and heartfelt and full of sympathy. “Oh, Tim. You poor thing. You came all the way here for nothing.”

There’s something wrong about that, but it takes Tim a while to figure out exactly what it is and how to address it.

It only comes to him later, after lunch, after dinner, while Jason is preoccupied with picking his way through a plate of grapes. Tim says, “I didn’t come for nothing.”

Jason looks up from his plate, a kink in his brow. “What?”

“Before. When you said I came all the way here for nothing. It wasn’t for nothing.”

Jason blinks, and then blinks again, and then he just laughs, sitting back in bed to cross his arms behind his head.

“You haven’t changed,” he says, and it almost sounds fond.

“I want to take a bath,” Jason announces again, and it isn’t any different to how he’d asked the first time. The difference now is that Jason hasn’t needed help getting around for weeks.

Tim doesn’t question it. He follows Jason into the bathroom, and once Jason has settled in the tub he’s wagging the shampoo at him, same as before. Same as before, Tim kneels at the head of the tub and washes Jason’s hair, and then he squeezes body wash into his hands and massages it into Jason’s shoulders, down over his chest.

It’s an accident when his fingertips brush over Jason’s nipples. Jason makes a small sound, but he says nothing. Tim does it again, on purpose, and Jason’s good eye flutters shut.

It feels unreal, to kneel there and watch Jason’s breathing stutter and catch because of him. When Tim’s hands wander further down, Jason reaches back to grab the back of Tim’s neck and turn Tim’s lips toward him. It’s a kiss that’s gentler than anything he imagined Jason would give him.

Tim takes Jason in hand and listens to Jason pant against his neck as he strokes him, slow and firm. Jason’s body goes taught when he comes.

Jason begins telling him bits and pieces of the portions of his life after Gotham. Only ever after sex, and never the big stories or altercations, the ones Tim knows about from his research. Instead, this is what Jason tells him:

Wandering a salt plain in Eastern Europe. Eating the best hotdog of his life on a nondescript street corner in Mexico. Sleeping with a source in Thailand, and how he hadn’t been able to control his laughter when he took off her shirt to find a Batman tattoo on her ribcage. Sitting through day-long bus rides from Kathmandu to Chengdu.

Tim has spent the last twelve months of his life painstakingly mapping Jason’s movements. Jason’s stories fill his timeline with brief, colourful vignettes.

“I kept expecting you to come back eventually,” Tim says, after the ninth story. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon and the curtains are drawn, painting the room in a dark gold-brown.

Saying it feels like a confession, because he’s been working up the courage to say it for the past few days and yet, somehow, he still regrets it as soon as it comes out of his mouth.

“Before or after I was eviscerated by killer ninjas?” Jason’s head shifts on his chest to look up at him, and then he’s sitting up, opening the nightstand drawer for a cigarette. Jason procured a packet at least a week ago, but Tim isn’t sure how or from whom.

Jason inhales deeply and then exhales, plumes of smoke rising from his nose. “The world’s a terrible place. I had a lot of good excuses to stay away from Gotham. Kind of like how you’re using me as your excuse right now.”

Jason fills out quickly. By week four, Tim would guess that Jason’s body mass index is within normal range.

It’s good progress, and Tim tells Jason exactly that when he walks in on Jason struggling through a series of pushups. Jason finishes his set before sitting up, fixing Tim with a scrutinising stare. A bead of sweat pearls off the tip of his nose.

“You don’t sound too happy about it,” Jason says.

It isn’t accusatory, but Tim apologises reflexively. He doesn’t know how else to respond.

Jason tells him that he’s feeling restless and suggests that they go out for dinner.

It’s the dry season and the roads are congested, well-lit and lively. Jason takes the lead and Tim follows.

They stroll through the city. They watch street performers and clap when the shows are over. They eat at a restaurant by the Saigon River; Jason orders a noodle-based dish and flicks soup all over the table as he slurps it down. He talks animatedly about nothing. Afterwards, they browse a night market before they return to the hotel. It reminds Tim of being undercover, except there's no case to be had.

“You’re leaving soon,” Jason says. It’s an observation, not a question.

What gave him away? Maybe it’s how often he’s been checking his computer, or maybe it’s how often he’s caught himself looking out the window. The situation in Gotham is bad, and it’s getting worse with every passing day.

“It’s time, I think,” Tim replies, and then he turns away from Jason to face the fridge and look for nothing in particular.

All this time and Jason has never once asked him how things are going in Gotham or what’s happened since he left. Jason hasn’t even asked him how anyone is doing. Not Dick, not Alfred.

Tim knows exactly what it means.

“I won’t ask you to come back to Gotham,” Tim says. “But I want to.”

Jason laughs. “It’s good that you know not to ask.”

It only takes Tim a handful of minutes to pack his bags, and something about that is off. Like it should have taken longer. It feels like he’s lived half a lifetime in this twenty by thirty room, but when he looks down at his suitcase, all he has to show for it are three pressed shirts and three pairs of slacks.

Jason has been uncharacteristically quiet all day. Right now he’s slumped in an armchair in front of the television, flicking listlessly through the hotel room’s thirty-odd channels.

“Well,” Tim starts, and he’s spent the last few nights thinking about what he should say to Jason when he leaves, but he hadn’t been able to come up with anything substantial. He’d been hoping that something would come to him in the moment, but he’s reminded once again that he’s never been great at improvisation.

“You can stay in the hotel for however long you want. Let me know if you’re ever in Gotham.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Jason spares him only a glance and a polite, perfunctory smile before returning his gaze to the television.

Tim had hoped for something less unsentimental, but this is fine too. He takes one last look at Jason, picks his suitcase up from the bed and turns to leave.

Just as he’s opening the front door, Jason’s voice calls out to him.

“Tim.”

Tim pauses by the doorway and turns around. Jason is sitting up from the armchair, and his gaze feels like a hot poker.

“I gave him my whole life, Tim,” Jason says. “You don’t have to give him yours too.”

Tim wonders if there’s a world out there where it’s that easy. He smiles to himself.

“You know that that’s not how it works.”

If Jason is disappointed by his answer, he doesn’t show it. Jason only shrugs, almost bashful, his gaze falling away to the floor. He’s as beautiful as ever.

“Yeah, well. It was worth a shot.”


End file.
